Dear Diane,

I know people who invested a lot of time and effort in renovating old sailboats, or old cars… I know someone who had a very strong attachment to his old car, and couldn’t make himself to sell it for a long time (even though it was already a liability and hardly ever used) – because of an emotional attachment. They expected much more joy and satisfaction from the car, but it was a disappointment because it wasn’t working properly and would require constant repairs.

You say you invested a lot of time and blood, sweat and tears into renovating this old home. Did you get to enjoy it too? Did you enjoy the result of your hard work or there was always something to fix and worry about, which kind of clouded the joy? What’s the overall experience of those 18 years?

Dear triss,

you’re welcome. You said:

I can’t imagine my marriage ending but I can’t imagine it going on like it is. …  It’s really hard to hit reset.

May I ask what’s your greatest fear if you were to end your marriage? I am asking because it is often because of fear that we stay in unbearable situations and feel stuck, unable to make a move in either direction.

You say you feel lost, don’t know what you’re doing, and that your life is scattered around. Is it related to other areas of life, not just your marriage? If so, your confusion and indecision may have to do with conflicting desires, or with the fear of failure if you do follow your dreams?

Dear Dave,

you’re very welcome. It’s a real pleasure to read about your progress and your positive, optimistic attitude. You’re doing a great job in understanding yourself, and developing a nurturing, compassionate relationship with yourself. This helped you communicate your true feelings and desires to your girlfriend, which led to separating amicably and with respect for each other. That’s amazing. I am glad you’ve spoken to a counselor too, who helped you further.

It’s also good to hear that you’re doing hobbies, exercising, spending time with friends… all those are great resources which energize you and help you stay on track.

If at any point you’d start feeling down or experience doubts, please feel free to post about it. I’ll be happy to read and help if possible. Wishing you all the best moving forward!

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by Tee.

Dear Felix,

I tried to contain that voice by telling my mind that i dont want to go back to square one, and i keep reminding myself that i’ve succeeded in not posting for many days and counting and i tell to myself that it’s already and achievement… and i can be a little proud of myself. It did work in containing that voice, although sometimes i get distracted… but i hope as time passes i’ll be able to contain that voice better.

That’s great, Felix, that you’ve managed to contain that voice, and also that you feel much calmer nowadays, not seeking attention on instagram. And also, that you realize you have a few good friends, who like you for who you are, and that you don’t need to do anything to impress them. Those are all valuable insights and I am really happy for you.

It’s okay if you want to take care of your physical appearance. You may want to do some sports, or lift some weights to develop some musculature, or perhaps jog. Being healthy and fit is important, and a good goal to strive for. As long as it doesn’t put you in a competitive mode – like comparing yourself with other guys, putting yourself down for not being strong and muscular enough, or at the other extreme, bragging about your physique. So as long as it’s just something to keep you happy and healthy, and give you a healthy sense of accomplishment, by all means go for it. I am rooting for you!

Dear triss,

I am sorry that your marriage isn’t the way you imagined it to be, and that your husband is treating you badly. It’s good you’ve moved out to get some space and some perspective. He is accusing of being selfish and not having any plans, and you actually agree with him:

I do feel selfish – I have no idea what I’m doing, my life is scattered around – and it’s hard to keep up daily appearances.

Would you care to elaborate on this? How do you believe you’re selfish, and how is your life scattered around?

Dear Ilyana,

The manic phase was good in that I wasn’t in pain, but bad in that it represents instability. Deep down I find manic phases fun and exciting, and they’re way better than depression. But they come with poor decision making, which often has negative consequences for my life. They almost inevitably lead to a crash afterwards. What I want is to be stable.

I see how a manic phase can be exciting, that’s why I mentioned it earlier. I do understand that from the standpoint of “stability” it’s not good for you and you don’t like it, but otherwise “deep down” you like it, because you’re elated, you’re excited, you’re feeling intensely, you’re in love, you’re hoping, dreaming, soaring the skies like a bird who’s free…. You didn’t have any of that in your childhood, did you? You were afraid, lonely, felt miserable, and your mother was full of hatred and resentment towards your father. Even if your personality were cheerful and happy, you couldn’t express that around your mother – I guess she would have guilt-tripped you for being anything but miserable around her.

In your entire childhood, you didn’t have much chance to express normal child’s emotions like elation, excitement, joy, happiness, laughter… you were surrounded with negativity, hatred, resentment, bitterness, criticism and condemnation. You probably felt guilty for even wanting to be happy sometimes. Am I guessing this right?

If so, no wonder that you miss those natural human emotions that give meaning to life. No wonder you don’t want to remain “stable” in your depression. You said your manic episodes stopped when you gave birth to your son. Perhaps that’s when you felt you needed to “grow up” and get stable, which for you meant to become depressed, to be deprived of those exciting emotions that you craved so much? Perhaps a part of your resentment towards your son is that by becoming a mother, you felt you needed to sacrifice your manic episodes – whereas they were the only times you felt alive?

About your husband, you said:

We have been waiting for ten years to go back to a happy place we were in for only 3 years.

What was different in those first three years?

Dear Ben,

It seems that even minor stress can invade every corner of my mind and reduce me to a cowering, trembling lump. I received a couple of voicemails about financial matters that I’m worried about, and not only could I not listen to them, I couldn’t even look at my phone or have it near me. I do the same thing with paper mail- I’ll often throw it away, unopened. I can’t bring myself to look at it, and then I can’t look at myself. I’m so ashamed of my cowardice.

It’s because you feel helpless – you don’t know how to handle life’s challenges, or this particular (financial) challenge, and you feel overwhelmed. You feel you don’t have the resources or the capacity to solve problems. That’s why you’re afraid to face those problems – because you’re at a loss of what to do.

I feel like a scared kid, not a grown man, and I hate it.

Yes, and it’s because the scared kid is still living inside of you – that’s your wounded inner child. All children start out feeling helpless and scared, but with proper support, guidance and encouragement, they develop self-confidence and courage, they learn to trust themselves and their abilities. If you’ve never received that kind of encouragement, if your parents hardly ever played with you, or helped you learn new skills, no wonder you’d be missing those skills. A child cannot develop self-esteem and self-confidence in a vacuum – it needs constant parental engagement. If the engagement wasn’t there, the self-esteem is also missing.

I’m supposed to be able to solve problems with grace

You can only solve problems with grace if you have enough self-esteem and self-confidence – if you don’t feel helpless in face of problems. If you lacked parental engagement and support, which is necessary for many of our skills to develop, including our problem solving skills, you would be at a loss. Another reason could be that your parents didn’t have good problem solving skills either – they didn’t speak about their problems for many years, and then they suddenly divorced, after just one argument. That’s a bad role model for problem solving skills…

I can’t even say No

A part of the problem could be your fear of confrontation, which is related to your parents’ sudden divorce after just one confrontation. As I said earlier, it could be that in your mind, you see confrontation as dangerous and something that causes irreparable damage.

All these present-day problems and limitations are caused by the emotional neglect that seems to have happened in your childhood. Try to understand that there is a child, a little boy inside of you, who didn’t get his emotional and developmental needs met properly. As a result, you’re lacking some skills now.

Like anita said, the first thing would be to stop blaming yourself because it’s like blaming a child for being inadequate. The child within you needs compassion and understanding before all.

He can get that from your adult part, who can serve as a positive, loving parent to your inner child. The task would be to develop this positive, parental inner voice, as the antidote to the harsh inner critic who’s shaming and condemning the boy all the time.

Do you think you can do that? To have that positive, compassionate voice as the counterbalance to the inner critic?

Dear Murtaza,

i laugh when i want to cry, i laugh when i feel bothered

If you laugh when you feel bothered, or you laugh when you feel sad, it could be because when you expressed “negative” emotions such as anger or sadness in your childhood, they were unacceptable to your parents, and you might have been punished or faced some other repercussions. You couldn’t express your negative emotions freely, therefore you chose to suppress them and instead cover them up with an “acceptable” emotion, such as laughter, feigning to be happy, or indifferent, or not bothered.

i have a really low emotional intelligence… emotion is like a mystery to me

In order to have emotional intelligence, we first need to know how we feel, so that we could recognize how the other person feels and e.g. have empathy for them. If you needed to suppress your own emotions and got disconnected from them – for the reasons I mentioned above – it can easily lead to lack of emotional intelligence.

i don’t even know how to deal with anxiety, i ignore it, try to re sure myeslf, doesn’t work, the only thing that works is sleep, otherwise the pain in my stomach never goes away, 

The pain in your stomach can be from your anxiety, and if I understood well, you’re anxious most of the time when you’re awake. Anxiety as a default program can be caused by not having received proper soothing and comfort as a baby and child. For example, if you were left alone to cry in your crib, and nobody came to pick you up, that would be one reason. Or if you were punished for crying, for example.

i have a really low self esteem,

If you were criticized and condemned often as a child, that could have caused it. Any kind of parental rejection, or even lack of care and attention, leads the child to conclude that there’s something wrong with them, even fundamentally wrong. That they are unlovable and unworthy.

for the sake of just knowing, what would be the price to heal? how can i heal ? what method/things i should do? and do they work actually or just for some people ?

We as children have certain core emotional needs – such as to be loved, nurtured, accepted, appreciated, validated, to feel special to our parents, etc. If those core needs weren’t met and instead we were emotionally wounded – that’s where our adult emotional problems and anxiety stem from. In order to heal, we’d need to meet those unmet core emotional needs, and the best to do it is in therapy.

You would have to get in touch with your suppressed emotions, but first realize that they are acceptable, that you are allowed to have them. And then you’d need to work in therapy to release them, and to receive what you haven’t received in childhood – love,  compassion, understanding, validation etc. If you’d like to know some more, I’d be happy to answer.